Recipes I have used in the some restaurants & at home.

One Mother of a Sauce

!/4 C flour
1/4 C room temp butter
3 C whole milk
pinch nutmeg
S/P to taste

In large skillet over low heat, melt butter, whisk in flour. Continue to whisk over low heat for 1 min. Crank up heat and pour in milk. Continue to whisk to desired thickness.

That is a basic Bechamel
To make various cheese sauces: add 1/4 C of cheese of choice while whisking (note, for cheddar, 1 T mustard should also be added)

Heavy cream or 1/2 and 1/2 can be used instead but this was written for those that may need a little more forgiving technique.

Yep it is true

My Mise

Seriously, as a Chef in a small/med/large restaurant, you do not walk in and everything is ready for you to cook. Does not really matter what your title is you have to insure your stuff is in order (mise). This applies to life and those outside the culinary world and yet “they” don’t quite get it. In our world, we should have a plan in place. More often than not I wake up and think of what I need to get done at the cafe, when I need to start and finish each task, where things need to be placed, how I am going to do it, what do we have left over that can be used for a special, how to cook and plate the special, what day of the week it is. Weather also plays a part and not just for my drive time. Pay days, school schedules and more. Then I consult the Ouiji board to have a plan.
At Cafe 131, I still don’t know what to expect as far as customers. I build it and they may come. CIP,: There was a fire on MoPac Southbound at Barton Skyway. It was backed up on the southbound at 3333. Took me an hour just to get thru (keep in mind I started that trip at 2:15) and did not get to the Cafe until 3:50 PM. I usually get there at 3:30 on my heavy prep days. A woman claled in a togo at 4 for a 5 pick up.
I felt like I spent the whole night in the weeds. Sure, everything went out on time but SHIT! I honestly HATE HATE HATE being late.

Yep it is true

This is really disturbing

Some poor soul is gonna think it is real but it showed up in my spam box- I just copied it as it was sent to me.

Department of Treasury Internal Revenue Source

Important information about your tax return

We are unable to process your tax return

We recived your tax return. However, we are unable to process the return as field.

Our records indicate that the person identifiedas the primary taxpayer or spouse on the tax return did not provided all the required documents shown on the tax form. Our records are based on information received from the Social Security Administration.

Based on this information, the tax account for the individual has been locked

What you need to do

Print out the attached notification and list of missing documents, fill it in, add the documents and send the following information to the adress shown in the attached notification.

List of required documents:

1. A copy of this letter

2. Notification letter

3. A photocopy of valid U.S. Federal or State Government issued identification.

Keep this notice for your records. If you need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact us

Yep it is true

I can not make this up

I am temp Chef at a resto under transition at the moment and it is all good.
To save my time, I suggested a couple changes so I didn’t get pulled off the line to take care of this stuff. One of which was to have the FOH dress the salads. I put all the house made dressings in squirt bottles and stuck em in the cooler next to the pick up window. Sounds reasonable right? Normal practice right? Should be no problem for MOST FOH.
Yet it is not.
They hired a young lady was hired a couple weeks before I arrived. She claims that she has FOH experience. Ummmmmm. Here are a few red flags that may tell the truth.
1. I tell her the roast chicken is 86 for 20 more minutes. She asked what that meant.
2. I said push two particular entrees. She said oh if they ask?
3. Rang bell and handed her her Caesar salad, she turns around and grabs a jug of ranch. I stop her from dressing it. She asked, well then what dressing do we use?
4. Stopped her from cutting the cheese cake, nope she was about to try to cut a segment not a wedge.
5. It must repeatedly be explained that the table that is having the shrimp pasta and the grilled chicken breast will get their mains before the table that ordered steaks all around. Even though the steak table was seated first.
6. It is a good idea to hand a menu to the diner to look over while you get their water and drink order. Oh, and later return to ask what they would like to order.
I am thinking that her previous experience was as a waitress avatar in a game, or that she saw a waitress before.
Moving along, I say the place is in transition because they are in the process of selling but need to stay in business until it is sold. It is really a kinda fun gig. Not a big challenge of skill for me (okay, the daft FOH girl is) and is interesting. I do have to pull one double shift a week which is a real bitch. The resto is an hour away from me so it is not like I can drive home for a 2 hour break between the lunch and dinner service.
To top it off? I had done 3 b2b doubles and was exhausted. Fell asleep on the sofa, later woke up to go to bed. Got my right foot caught up in the laptop cables. Down goes Fraizer. Trying to not let the cables pull the laptop off the coffee table, I managed to smash my foot on the coffee table. So I have been working with a broken foot. What can ya do right? Suck it up and keep working. Hey, I have downloaded a human being and some where along the line developed a high pain tolerance. It is pretty much a requirement in the culinary world anyway.
So it has been like that.

Recipes I have used in the some restaurants & at home.

Pork Loin with Zante Currants

4 lbs pork loin brined over night (for this particular brine I used 1/2 c brown sugar, 1/2 c kosher and 1/2 gallon of water)
2 C Zante currants
3 C port wine
1 large ancho chili peeled, seeded and diced
1 orange zested and juiced
1 shallot minced
1/2 C evoo
2 T dry mustard
2 sprigs ea, rosemary and thyme stripped and minced
2 large cloves garlic cut in 1/2
1 coin fresh ginger
S/P to taste

Soak currants over night in orange juice port wine, garlic, herbs and ginger. Strain currants remove garlic and ginger coin and reserve liquid.

Pat loin dry, sprinkle with dry mustard and S/P. In large dutch oven with olive oil, brown loin on all sides. Cover and into 350 convection oven for 45 minutes. Remove from pot and let rest 10 minutes. In same dutch oven, saute shallots, anchos and deglaze with reserved currant liquid, reduce by 1/2. Serve sauce over loin and garnish with currants and orange zest

Recipes I have used in the some restaurants & at home.

Ancho-Plum BBQ Sauce Not MINE thank U Trey Moran!

Red plum jelly
tomato sauce
red wine or apple cider vinegar
ancho chile powder (Fresh is best, I grind my own)
chopped garlic (could probably use garlic powder)
salt
ground cumin
cayenne (optional)
Whisk everything together in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Stir often. Simmer for a few minutes, and let cool completely. It will have quite a kick at first but as it sits it will mellow out.

My only add to this is the quantity of each but this is NOT mine so a follow up will only be my spin, But I want to make it very clear! It is not my recipe. Props go to the right ppl. Then again I am not above making this better, 🙂

Leftovers

Texas Food and Wine Fest

It is happening here in my part of the world. Really great event for locals to sample some high end stuff by high end (and not so) Chefs.
It isn’t SOBE but hey, I’ll take it. I get to find some inspiration for recipes. Sure, I may swipe one or two but put my own spin on them.
Anyway, the down side is that some of the Celeb Chefs totally get full of themselves. Yes I said it. Some are just not good guests of our fair area. Cutting in line at some of the more popular restaurants is not cool. I know they help bring money to the area as well as visitors but seriously! It is just rude. But thanks for spending some cash here.

Leftovers

It is true

So, it is SXSW here and we have had some great bands, restaurants and films that are being enjoyed by all, Doesn’t hurt our economy either.
Didn’t get to experience much of it myself as usual. Had to live through it via twitter. All good stuff. Some of the “celebs” visiting our area were not familiar to me. Then again, I am not much of a follower of the famous for no particular reason.
That said, it is really awsome event. Second place has to go to the ROT but I will save that for another time.
At this time I will write about the RR being here. Seems that there was NO NIL NADA line waiting to see the Queen of open a can of (insert product) but she is interesting enough to me to have thoughts about her. I will give her credit for admitting she is not a Chef but just a “pound puppy”-her words. I will also give her snaps for at least cooking sorta.
What I don’t care for about her is that she really does have an audience/fanbase that IMHO will not even bother to try to cook what she has demonstrated. These are folks that in general, go with the drive thru. Ticks me off. Sure, I can and do cook from scratch as much as possible (sometimes it is not practical to make fresh pasta etc.) and I know it would be unrealistic for a lot of people to do it.
It totally hacks me off that people don’t even TRY to make a meal at home with their friends and or family at minimum 3 times a week. The whole time spent cooking and talking and eating together is time lost living in my mind. So, yes I am very food focused but there is a reason. Missing out on sharing your day, thoughts, and love is a total pity. If the food fails, it still offers the opportunity to learn and if it is an epic fail? I good story to share.